Rat Town

Trip Start Aug 28, 2005
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Trip End Dec 10, 2005


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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Thursday, September 15, 2005

The boat was packed full with tourist and a few Lao people too. We were sitting quite close to the back which was pretty noisy. Seats were small hard wooden benches. I did have prior warning from Bins to take a cushion but we didnt get organised to get one. for anyone considering this trip in the future - make sure you get a comfy cushion! We slowly made our way down the river for about 5-6 hours until we reached Pak Bang where we stopped overnight Pak Bang is a very simple small riverside town, nothing more than a few terrible guesthouses and village people. We had a feeling that we had been scammed on the accomodation ticket as they told us when we arrived in Lao that they only way to book accomodation in this small place was to pre-purchase a room at 500Baht for a room for 2 people! A little crazy and very expensive we thought but you just dont know whether people are honest or scamming you sometimes and we really do want to believe the best in people! Turns out we got scammed big time - the ticket we got give describe the Bunmy Guesthouse as a 'nice, clean, beautiful' guesthouse with lovely views overlooking the Mekong river (the Mekong looks a little similar to Willy Wonkas chocolate river but less tasty!) The room Jo and i shared was a small, damp, dirty box with a fan that fanned the air directly to the roof, not good for cooling us Knackered!
Knackered!
 . Bathroom also dirty and no hot water as we were promised it had! It gets better from here too! Turns out that all electricity turns off at 11pm and doesnt come back on till about 6pm the next day so no hot shower and no fan after 11pm.
We met an Welsh guy when we arrived at the boarder who roomed with Pie for the night. We decided to dine on the nice looking belcony overlooking the river. A little mosquito infested and we saw a rat running up near the roof! Dinner was a little disapointing compared to the standard of Thai food we have been eating. maybe not the best place to start experimenting on lao food either. We ordered a chicken dish, beef dish and pork dish. We could safly say that the chicken was neither chicken nor pork and the pork was neither pork nor chiken - maybe Rat, Dog, Buffalo???? Best we dont actually know!
We sweated out the night on the most uncomfortable bed ever and then got disturbed by a fricken rat sifting through our rubbish bin at 1am! A RAT! (we then worked out that was why the owner came round not long after we got there telling us to throw away any food we had in our bags to the kitchen bins) We did find it in the bathroom and it ran out under the door which we quickly found a way to bung up the hole using the door mat and Pies shoes he left in our room. Looked a couple of hours later and the damm rat had pushed its way back in through our baracade and had chewed the door mat apart too! So after what was possibly the worst sleep ever and coldest, most low pressured shower we were so happy to get back on the overcrowded uncomfortable slow boat.
Rumours went around at breakfast that we were originally told to meet back at the boat at 8.30am but the boat actually leaves at 8am. They tell you the time difference as a way to get people to stay on another night in Pak Bang. We were no way keen to test out the rumour so were down at the boat before 8am and as it turned out it didnt leave till 9am.
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Comments

tom.sharp
tom.sharp on Mar 14, 2006 at 01:12PM

Thats tough.....
Brilliant, my girlfriend and I had almost exactly the same experience, we ordered chicken Tom Yum and were told by the owner that it was actually squirrel, grey and chewey.

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